


A shadow that he's chasing

by Tyleet



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-18
Updated: 2009-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-04 13:07:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyleet/pseuds/Tyleet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's just a ragged clown behind<br/>I wouldn't pay him any mind<br/>Don't you know it's just a shadow that he's chasing?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A shadow that he's chasing

Well, that one was a _doozy_. That thing with the guy in the place and the drop and then the bomb? I wasn't expecting that, sugarcakes. But, ah, by the looks of it, neither were _you_.  
  
I have to say, I didn't actually expect there to be a tunnel. With light at the end, no less.

Walk with me a while?

It, uh, makes you wonder what else is true. If I'll really be swimming in a river of boiling blood while centaurs shoot arrows into my ass until trumpets sound, or if the old bastard finally caught on to the industrial revolution and modernized. Instead it could be me sitting naked on a vinyl couch forced to watch _Flipper_ on repeat for all eternity while Heath Ledger staples bologna to my face. Stranger things have happened, you know.

Look, a simple "thank you" will do me and then I'll go.

What?

You're not grateful? You think just because I'm evil I never _saved_ the _world_? You're not the only hero here just because you have a rule and I don't. I didn't even kill that many people, really, when you think about it. Not personally. Sure, I've rigged a lot of charges, but that's not really _personal_, is it? Anyway, my specialty is fallout. Personally I can't have killed over a hundred—but I don't know, I don't keep count.

Really, that many? Who'da thunk. Anyway, that's beside the point. The point is that_ I_ am a goddamn hero.

Oh don't look at me like that. I haven't gone crazy just because we're dying. I know I'm the villain. I just happen to know that I'm _also_ a hero. Look, you ever read the funnies, Batman?

What kind of fucked up childhood did you _have_, hunh? If you had you'd know we're neither one of us technically the genuine article.

The real superheroes wear red and blue—you can, aha, take the white for granted. Captain A_mer_ica. Spiderman. Boys with eyes like the sky over Disneyland and waving hair like rolls of Kansas wheat. Boys raised under Lady Liberty and fed on love and home grown Iowa corn. Boys whose stories are all about their—girls.

Now let's look at you and me. You're dangerous, vindictive, filled with _self loathing_ instead of justice. You have a, uh. _Thing_ for petty thieves in lycra ever since your one true love died by fire, ever so long ago. And I like my women creatively smeared into the concrete underneath those pedestals so their spilled insides spell out your name. You have a leather fetish and I like green carnations and our stories are all about death and each other and _death_. And yet we've saved our city how many times now?

Or at least I've saved _you_, which amounts to the same thing.

Oh, like you don't remember the time by the harbor? Or the bit with the lavender crayon? Oh right, uh, that was just me. But there's always the time Harl had you strung up by your _ankles_ over a tank of _piranhas_. Ah. Hahaha. I'll miss that girl. Or when you were arrested and I went ahead and blew up City Hall _just for you_, even though I was _saving_ City Hall for a _really special_ occasion.

So maybe you're ahead of me examplewise, but if you've saved Gotham a thousand times I've kept her from dying of _boredom_ a thousand times over. That should count for something, don't you think? Let's face it, darling, if it hadn't been for me--and you, our Gotham wouldn't exist.

Say, do you believe in reincarnation, Batsy? Wouldn't that just be nutty? If I came _back_, and you thought I was _gone_, and we'd start playing the game all over again. Only nobody would let you hurt me, because I'd be five years old and smiling and only you would know the _truth_. That would just burn you up, wouldn't it, sugarsnap? I could get away with anything, then, and you couldn't stop me. After all, anything's possible. Only now you'll be on the watch for it.

How many years will you look for me in people's eyes, I wonder?

Fine, don't thank me. But it's yours now, you know. Everything I've ever given you—lipstick kisses and death by dental drill. Tarot card suicides. Killer robots in acid green tights, poisoned stripper birthday cake, a pack of bloodstained playing cards with the sexy bits drawn back in and a couple of _damn funny_ jokes.

Take them. Batman, I give it all to you.

And tomorrow you'll finally know how it feels.

It's, ah, _beautiful_. It's like playing Harlequino in the night when no one believes in clowns anymore. You get to be the actor _and_ the audience _and_ Roger Ebert. But no matter how hard you try, it always winds up the same at the end of the issue: the tower of chaos you build comes tumbling down.

And you'll have to start all over again.

Well. Looks like this is where I, you know, get off.

Hey, _whoa_. Are you _crazy_? You're not coming with me!

Your butler will come through. Or uh, one of the hostages will turn out to be a convenient doctor. Or else, like, _Superman_ will arrive just in the nick of time to give you mouth to mouth. Just, ha, _trust me_, honeycakes.

This time tomorrow I'll be roadkill under Dante's feet, and you'll be trying very hard to forget all about me.

But you won't. I can see it in the curve of your _lips._

You live long enough, you play all the parts. That's what it means to be human.

Well. Uh, so long, then, sweetheart.

I'll—stop. No, _no_, oh, no. Let go. Shh. I get the last word.

Sh-sh-_sh._ So , uh, these two cannibals are eating a _clown_. One of them turns to the other and says, hey, bats, does this taste _funny_ to


End file.
